Spoken and written words swirl, but the child ignores the sounds and is ignored by them. Two moons hang high in the night sky. The child is not permitted the power of moons.
They have named themself privately. Riennon. Rien is nothing. Non is not. Not nothing, they insist silently. A self is more than gender and a person is more than name.
This is their power.
But it is their only hold in a world where names, words, and moons bestow power.
Born ominously during the seconds of the only bilateral lunar eclipse of history, only a world of oppressive darkness cradles them. Their mother did not survive the omen.
They turn grey eyes to the horizon. Listless.
A tremor ripples through the earth beneath them. At first, Riennon thinks it is only the cold settling deeper into the soil. But then the tremor becomes a pulse. Steady, deliberate, like a heartbeat rising from the world. The swirling words stutter, falter, then bend toward them as if tugged by an unseen tide.
Riennon stares, frozen. The moons’ light lingers. The smaller moon flickers, dimming for a momentary wink.
A thin crack opens in the ground. From it spills a faint glow, not lunar, not written—something older. Something that feels like a name being spoken for the first time.
The words in the air twist sharply, no longer ignoring Riennon but orbiting them, curious, hungry.
Riennon rises. For the first time, the darkness does not cradle them.
It awakens them.